Council of the Ageing (COTA) NSW presents the inaugural Universal Design Conference 20–21 August at Sydney Town Hall.

Universal design is a global movement at aims to address gaps in design practice for the people inadvertently excluded by design – the elderly, people with disabilities and children. The movement is wide reaching and crosses all sectors of built environment design as well as policy as evident with the implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

With thirty-two presentations and cast studies, the conference brings together design practitioners, researchers and policy makers to discuss ways in which we can create more inclusive and liveable built environments that are safer, more useable and more amendable.

Keynote speakers are Dr Gerald Craddock who heads the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design, a peak body set up by the Irish government in 2007; and Kay Saville Smith, a sociologist and director of Centre for Research, Evaluation and Social Assessment in New Zealand.

The conference will cover topics such as inclusive practice and policy, house and home, wellbeing, transport, neighbourhood and user consultation – showing that inclusive design is a much part of the design process as it is the result.

Architect Guy Luscombe of GLAD Studio will open first concurrent session with presentation on the design of innovative buildings for older people, which was the subject of his 2014 Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship. Other architecture and design practitioners presenting include architect Geoff Barker who will present case studies of his work in thirteen remote locations in the Northern Territory; and landscape architect Sally Jeavons on inclusive play spaces for social interaction and community building.

See the full conference program and register here.